National Must be Joking, Right?

[HGjunkie]

... Big-ass geese fly into your engines and cause both to flame out - that's a tough one to figure out.

Gotta keep your head on a swivel for the geese!

[RiverAux]

I don't think that it is necessarily a bad thing to have a goal that in all reality might not be realized. 

Think about it this way -- What if an official goal of CAP was to find every single missing aircraft we are tasked with searching for?  We will never achieve this goal.  Does that mean that all the training and time we spend on trying to reach it is wasted?  That the effort made to figure out better ways to find planes is not worth it? 

Are such pie in the sky goals realistic?  Of course not.  But think of the alternative....

Lets say that CAP sets a goal of no more than 1 physical injury accident per 10,000 members per year.  That is really just as random as a goal of 0 accidents per year.  If we started to look bad by not coming anywhere near that goal, we'd just change the goal to something that we can reach. 

What really matters in situations like this isn't the goal, but the metric used to measure progress towards it.

Are accident rates declining or rising?  Are we only finding 90% of missing airplanes within 7 days, but that rate is rising over 10 years? 

The goals just tell you where you're trying to go, but the metrics actually tell you how you're doing. 

[JeffDG]

So long as people accept that zero accidents is not possible, accidents will occur.  A change in attitude is necessary where people accept that zero is not only possible, but the only acceptable situation.

Those who think that ALL accidents can be prevented needs to check back into reality. So i take it you have never had a cut or broken bone or rash sprained ankle twisted ankle sore knees or any thing? Not even a paper cut?

Take a look at the accidents that occur.  Please let me know the ones that could not have been prevented with better planning and some care taken.

As soon as you have the attitude "Oh, accidents happen", you stop bothering to try and prevent them.  Accidents happen because people don't prevent them.

[Al Sayre]

Big-ass geese fly into your engines and cause both to flame out - that's a tough one to figure out.

Not a problem  - Open season on geese   

[ZigZag911]

Many accidents happen in the cadet program for the same reason as anywhere else: lack of planning, as well as poor supervision.

A concrete example (from about 7-8 years ago): cadet gets hurt testing for mile run, fell on the gravel road (full of potholes) outside squadron meeting place, serious cuts & abrasions to knee, hands and arm...I think the knee needed a couple of stitches.

This was during their weekly unit meeting, at a time of year when there was very little light outdoors by the time their meeting started.

Supervision was the cadet commander and a cadet sponsor (a cadet's dad, as I recall) with little experience of the program.

Their town had excellent high school athletic fields and public recreation areas within about 2 miles of the meeting place...a quick ride in the CAP van assigned to the squadron (of course, this would have required a full senior member as driver, but then I felt that should have been the case to begin with).

I knew the area well, because the squadron I belonged to as a cadet (different charter, Had moved elsewhere over the years) met there in the 70s.

Also, I was their group CC, and we shared the same meeting place (different nights).

I was unimpressed with the situation and how it was handled!

[Eclipse]

Every '78 I've seen this year was avoidable.

Avoidable mishaps are unacceptable.  Period.

[James Shaw]

Avoidable mishaps are unacceptable.  Period.

Completly agree!

I look at any safety situation as if the people involved were my children. How would I feel if one of my children were injured because of someone else's mistakes. I think it hits home more when you think about it that way.

How would you feel if this were your child?
How would you feel if this were your vehicle?
How would you feel if this were your squadron?

How would you feel if you caused it?

I have 120 (children/operators) I am responsible for.

[BillB]

WOW Jim, you really rack upo the cards on Fathers Day.

[James Shaw]

WOW Jim, you really rack upo the cards on Fathers Day.

About half of it is hate mail Bill. But that would be scary wouldnt it. About 120 Jim jr's running around.

[RADIOMAN015]

Every '78 I've seen this year was avoidable.

Avoidable mishaps are unacceptable.  Period.

So have you given those members the firing squad yet OR are they basically just paying out their hard earned money for being a dedicated volunteer and having the misfortune of having an accident OR being tongue lashed with command criticism (as if the senior member wasn't upset because this did happen) for having a cadet that gets injured

Well unfortunately with the human element there's always going to be some accidents & some injuries.  Surely in retrospect its' very easy to say that some of these accidents MAY have been avoided.    When the average unit only has about 30% of their so called active senior members showing up to meetings, it's sometimes difficult to get someone fully qualified to supervise anything & there's also the overall fatigue factor if one has been working all day -- mistakes can be made.  However, volunteers do try their best, even with the limitation they may have.   There's a vast difference between accidents/injuries caused by a member's co mission versus omission.

HOWEVER, I do agree that our accident/injury statistical experience should be an indicator of the types of safety briefings and overall oversight we need to encourage the membership to achieve.

Perhaps the National HQ paid staffer could come up with fully developed briefing materials we can use at the squadron level that address the specific statistical problems.  Also standard risk management worksheets could pretty much be developed for everything we do in CAP, offering the accident/injury prone membership & so called inept supervisors more of a "guiding light" to prevention.
RM 

[Eclipse]

So have you given those members the firing squad yet OR are they basically just paying out their hard earned money for being a dedicated volunteer and having the misfortune of having an accident OR being tongue lashed with command criticism (as if the senior member wasn't upset because this did happen) for having a cadet that gets injured.

Well unfortunately with the human element there's always going to be some accidents & some injuries.  Surely in retrospect its' very easy to say that some of these accidents MAY have been avoided.    When the average unit only has about 30% of their so called active senior members showing up to meetings, it's sometimes difficult to get someone fully qualified to supervise anything & there's also the overall fatigue factor if one has been working all day -- mistakes can be made.  However, volunteers do try their best, even with the limitation they may have.   There's a vast difference between accidents/injuries caused by a member's co mission versus omission.

What would you suggest when someone inflicts thousands of dollars and downtime on a corporate aircraft or wrecks a CAP van?

There is no such thing as an "accident", which is one of the reasons most organizations have stopped using that word.
Being a volunteer has no bearing on the consequences, any more than if you break my power drill when you borrow it, you're
responsible for repairing it.  In fact, considering that our organization stresses professionalism and our "toys" are provided to
protect life and property the bar of behavior should be higher.

What you have is human error, negligence, and the occasional force majeure.

Human error can never be fully eliminated, however ORM and preparation can minimize the impact when it occurs.

Negligence is 100% unacceptable.  Hanger rash is 100% preventable, as is damage to ground vehicles when
members are in a hurray, not paying attention, or choose to do inadvisable things. Back up without a spotter,
take out the tires on a spike strip, or ignore the oil light and suffer the consequences.

Cadet mishaps are almost always due to poor planning or supervision.  Playing football in boots, running in a wet
locker room, or my favorite this year "falling in to a wall" (with such force as to put a cadet-sized hole in it.  No idea
what was going on in there, but I promise you it was not a cadet walking to class without someone else "assisting"
him into that wall).  Someone keeping a closer eye, or saying "knock it off" could have prevented those situations.

Force majeure is generally unavoidable and arguably unforeseen, but in all but the most extreme cases can be mitigated with preparation.  CAP aircraft ripped off the tie-downs by a tornado?  Could the plane have been moved before the storm?  Better tie-downs?
"Sudden" downpour causes flooding at a bivouac. Who was watching the weather, etc.

I have no particular love for all the check boxes and reporting, either, but the reality is that in some units the only safety program at all is
those same reports and check boxes, and in some cases the people who make the most noise about the issue are the same ones who
really need the training.

[arajca]

Having read the article, the way it is being presented by National demonstrates a lack of understanding or appreciation of safety trends by National. Instead of presenting this as a lottery, it should been presented as a trend analysis with a prediction by National and a challange to the wing cc's to prove them wrong.

[JC004]

Hindsight is 20/20 and preventing 100% of accidents is so very easily talked about, so less easily done.  "If only I..."

If I had left 5 minutes earlier, I wouldn't have got hit by that crazy driver.  If that cadet had simply walked down the other path, perhaps she wouldn't have been the victim of the vicious tree root attack.  If we hadn't been so mean and made the cadets walk so much, that cadet might not have got that blister...

Some of these things you prevent - preferably the most nasty things on your ORM matrix.  That's why you scale the potential safety hazards.  Maybe the cadet fell on the golf ball because you decided to walk through the open area instead of the boulder field.  Maybe nobody would have got hurt in the boulder field, but you sized up your risks and decided to do something different.  Of course the accident could have been prevented altogether by simply walking nowhere and staying in your bubble (unless the building catches on fire due to a preventable electrical fire).

[ZigZag911]

There is a big difference between hindsight and foresight.

We're supposed to exercise due diligence, which means basically using two tools: ORM and common sense.

Accidents happen; if it's apparently 'just one of those things' -- in spite of reasonable efforts to maintain a safe environment -- you review the event for lessons learned, see if something was missed despite good intentions.

If there is negligence, recklessness, or a 'cowboy attitude', you're darn right the individuals responsible are going to hear about it and probably face consequences.

Remember: the folks that got hurt (or worse) paid their dues, dedicated their time to CAP, have families too!!!

A CAP commander's goal should be to send all his people home in the same health they arrived!

[JC004]

I'm talking about listing <blank> incidents in the newsletter or saying <this long list> of accidents all could have been prevented.  It's hindsight.  Monday morning quarterbacking.  Maybe Joe should have been driving instead but Sam has been driving for a long time and he hasn't ever caused an accident - he has even cleverly avoided some caused by others but today it would have been safer if Joe had been driving...now that the accident is over.

[Eclipse]

I'm not sure where your issue is.   The majority of the incident they have been publishing have been preventable, and many are just lights-out moments.

[HGjunkie]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindsight_bias

http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/hindsight_bias.htm

[SarDragon]

ORM is a circular process. Here's the CAP version:

1. Identify the Hazards
2. Assess the Risks
3. Analyze Risk Control Measures
4. Make Control Decisions
5. Implement Risk Controls
6. Supervise and Review

My emphasis. That's where it becomes circular. The review of what went wrong the last time is key to making the process work.

Example - Joey Bagodonuts tripped on a tree root and hurt himself. Why? - because the area might not have been checked prior to the activity, or (more likely) Joey wasn't paying close enough attention to where he was going.

Solution(s) - Check the area (when possible, depending the nature of the activity) prior to turning the masses loose, and brief the masses about the possible hazards, like tree roots, and emphasize the need to watch where you are going.

Simply, add the results of the review to the Identify the Hazards segment the next time around.

[JC004]

I looked at a whole bunch of reports when I was working on the idea of online safety issue tracking (before NHQ came out with theirs).  I'd say that in theory probably 100% of the issues were preventable.  In reality, that was with the benefit of hindsight. 

If I had the benefit of telling the future in the stock market, I wouldn't have to work.  I could look at charts and know exactly when to buy and exactly when to sell.  In reality, I have to make an educated guess that is essentially exactly the same as doing ORM.  I'm making a calculated risk and deciding when to buy or sell based on my analysis.  It so happened that my picks recently were 5-figure winners.  A major corporate scandal or new government regulation could have derailed that.

I made a calculated risk to hike Upper Yosemite Falls trail.  It's a pretty serious trail.  I took my supplies and such.  I slipped a couple of times.  I could have fallen down the mountain.  Maybe it would have been prevented if I either didn't hike it or if I had ropes attached to me at all times.  A rock slide could have happened.  The signs warned me about that.  In theory, if that had happened, the injury would have been preventable.  It's pretty likely that a rock slide could happen to a ground team. 

Blisters are mentioned here.  I can't possibly believe that 100% of all blisters could be prevented in reality.  The unfortunate attack of the tree root was preventable in hindsight.  What was suggested to us to prevent a tree root attack was silly.  CAP is to make calculated risks based on the ORM process and move on. 

[EMT-83]

Folks are using the term "national" as if there is some faceless robot somewhere cranking out material. In reality, there are a handful of people trying to analyze data and present it in a format that doesn't require a Master rating in safety to understand. Occasionally, they miss the mark and write something totally off the wall.

If you have a real problem with something that's been published, how about taking some constructive action and getting in touch with someone at "national" who is responsible for the content. One such person is Frank Jirik, who can be reached at ext. 232 or via email at FJirik@capnhq.gov. Frank is a reasonable guy, who has been able to offer explanations where I disagreed with material published. He's very passionate about his work, and really isn't a faceless robot.